Ikkat Review: It Is Silly But Fun!

Ikkat (Kannada, Amazon Prime)

Rating: ***

Ikkat Review: Covid is now big business in  our movies. But somehow  to generate humour out of the pandemic is not an easy task. Not when the  frowners  will inevitably accuse  the co-directors  of  trivializing a   worldwide crisis.

Well, to hell with the  partypoopers! Ikkat the  first  funny comedy I’ve seen  in the  Kannada language,  thumbs its nose at the naysayers. It takes well-aimed posthots at  the  terrifying predicament  of   couples who during the lockdown  were left to their own devices, mainly sex, during the lockdown. Hence the baby boom. The  workingclass couple  in  Ikkat played with broad  unsubtle strokes of satire  by  Nagbhushan and Bhoomi Shetty are  not  into baby-making.

They have  other  problem s to deal with  when Prime Minister Modi announces  a lockdown.It’d easy for him to talk of sampoorn lockdown.  The ones  to take  the brunt  of  the  crisis were  nuclear families  forced to stay  together  for weeks.

 A  dismayingly  irritating uncle(Sunder Veena) , the bin bulaye  mehmaan  drops in.He  will remind you  of  Paresh Rawal in Atithee Tum Kab Jaoge. Except that this  uncle is far  broader  and  bristling with a comic  synergy. Every actor is into broad burlesquing,  which is  not  a bad thing in this case, considering the plot about coping with  unwanted guests  during lockdown  is leaden with  the spirit of an over-the-the-top  humour  which somehow never crosses  the line  of decency except when the  riled  wife  rhetorically asks not once  but twice, “What is  there  in our  house that is  long in size?”

Is she talking dirty or am I imagining it? Bhoomi Shetty as the wife has excellent comic  timing. Her faint resemblance to  the great Sridevi made her more interesting to me than she actually is. But her expressions of disdain dismay and  disgust are bang-on. Nagabhushan as her bitter-half reminded me of Laxmikant  Bherde.  However the two actors  playing unwanted  guests  in the tiny house are originals. They have to  be. To replicate their  comic synergy   and  satirical expressions would be  impossible.

While the writing gets  progressively clumsy with the ending  being more like a  sudden unplugging  of the  heated energy than  an actual  solution , Ikkat does make you smile once in a  while. At  its  best it is   mildly humorous. At its worst, it is  loud and  cheesy. The  humour  regarding  Janvi’s tiktok  friend who  hides in her closet, under the bed ,etc gets annoying like  a house  guest who  overstays.  That apart, if you are  looking for broad humour during  these turbulent times, Ikkat is just the  pill that you will  find  hard not to swallow.